There's A War On
by Aurora-Borealis Coyote
Summary: Sloth didn't quite hate Kimblee and didn't quite understand him either, yet she came very close to both. Kimblee x Sloth


**I was thinking about how Sloth and Lust are somewhat alike and how I think they were contrasting with each other a lot in the series, and then that led me to Lust and Scar's relationship, and then that led me to the Scar and Kimblee contrast, and then the Scar and Lust contrast, because they all very much contrast with each other. Then that made me realize with the four of them being all contrastish, that Sloth and Kimblee actually have a lot of common/uncommon ground even though they don't interact (but could have.). I think in a way Kimblee is slothful/apathetic in the way that he has a lot of opportunities but doesn't really care about them and doesn't even care about his own humanity ("humans are empty"). Whereas Sloth has so much apathy in her, but only because she's kind of given up- she doesn't have any opportunities and doesn't want to look for them because she knows she won't find any. And the rest I've put in the story. **

**Lol crackpairing…and somehow it wouldn't surprise me if Sloth read those romance novels, thinking "WTF this is lame". **

**Warnings: Casual, escapist, rough sex. Not that it's descriptive or anything, what with me and my vagueness…and besides, the sex isn't the point of the story.**

**Pairings: Some contrasting and very unromantic SlothxKimblee  
**

It is all just another part of the system, and Sloth sees right through it, efficiently working and pulling the right strings and watching as necks are stepped on and distantly regretting the loathing she feels, and having to look for an outlet for it.

There is almost no good outlet. Humans irritated her a lot at times- when she becomes one, whenever that may be, she can wait forever if it means she can find her freedom- she hopes she won't act like one, aware of her holier-than-thou attitude she adopts around some of them, but she can't help it, they're just being so wasteful and it disgusts her. Arrogant, weak-willed, avaricious fools. But not all of them, she was one once and two little boys loved her, and she understands humans, and that is what she thinks is close enough.

Everything around her seems to be just _close_, she thinks- she is close to understanding, close to being human, close to being nothing, close to a human lifestyle. She hopes. But hope is usually useless; she lets herself know very well.

She knows, doesn't need to hope, that she is so far away from Kimblee in mind, even though she's physically close as two can get. Supposedly, according to the humans their act is becoming one with each other, she's read their erotic novels- it's almost ridiculous, how much of a contrast this is.

Sloth had known so many with the quality Kimblee has, thinking they just had the right to do whatever they felt regardless of rules or convention, without regard to who they should have been obeying. She is a behind-the-scenes woman, and few people truly understand how a behind-the-scenes woman's mind works.

Behind closed doors, Pride gives orders and the people work along with the system and Juliet Douglas freezes, while Sloth surveys the scene and does the grit work and brandishes the whip.

And that is why she looks at Kimblee with such contempt- he is beside her desk with her, not only as a business agreement (she knows that this is the type of distracted man who will let out everything he knows about Greed with the help of a coaxing un-seducer), but because there's no real reason why not, and it's an outlet for both of them, and both of them take an interest in each other, but a very different interest. Sloth knows that.

(There's something about the thin-lipped and hard woman that reminds Kimblee of a fighting greyhound. She seems to be hiding haggardness, someone who was forced into submission but can very well take any opportunity to tear someone apart with her hands and teeth, but probably won't unless nature takes over or is ordered to. Something made dull and almost broken, but potentially wild and threatening, knowing that she might answer to someone big but she doesn't answer to him.)

"What are your plans now that you are reentering the military?" Sloth asks in her clipped, gentle voice that hides the subtext of 'why do you even want to be here?' It occurs to her that Kimblee could be free of any ties right now, but chooses not to be, chooses to technically be just another pawn of the military. It occurs to her that this man is going to die an opportunist and a human coward, but live with the option to die free- and she isn't sure which one outweighs the other or disgusts her more.

Sloth believes in making your bed and lying gracefully in it- she knows after what she's done she'll never truly be free or regular, and if she can accept that, then she supposes she'll be fine. But Kimblee- after all the messes he's made, he picks up and walks like he doesn't have to be effected by it, like he had nothing to do with it, like he had made a bed and decided he wasn't tired. It is his business to do what he wants, Sloth thinks, but she thinks Kimblee should just do what the sensible thing is. Kimblee can be the Crimson Lotus Alchemist, Major, Butcher of Ishval, a nameless prisoner, any one of the meaningless but chosen identities; he'll always be a human and always can be anything else he chooses in addition.

"I'm back where I lit up the world, _Miss Douglas_," Kimblee speaks out amidst small moans and gripping Sloth's shoulders- she feigns interest, but really, this sort of thing arouses her no more than paperwork- and he mocks her 'name'. "I'm sure the plans will just come to me." Sloth is positive they will, but not in the way he expects in that he is blowing craters into the ground and digging his own grave, but even in that, she wishes that she had the same gain out of the experience of destruction that Kimblee has. But she isn't human. When she is, she'll get by from knowing her place- even though a part of her wanted to break the status, like the man splayed underneath her.

"Don't think so quickly," she tells him, feeling how rough Kimblee only thinks he is being on her firm "lifeless" legs, and he arches his back. She isn't even trying too hard, but from those piles of military records, she's seen his name, and she's seen that he's easily excited like the human he is. He thinks he's throwing an edge in, gripping the side of her head, but he isn't making her feel anything, and she shoves against him bitterly. Kimblee makes Sloth wonder how strong humans can truly claim to be, for all the alchemist's outward control and pride, he is vulnerable at the hands of what Sloth considers to be barely anything. The power Sloth holds now doesn't interest her much, it doesn't amuse her, it almost reviles her, and she doesn't really want it.

Kimblee's eyes close in some sort of euphoria, as he tells her "too late for that", trying to be funny. Sloth realizes that right now, Kimblee is just another workplace issue to deal with, and she's sick of watching over everyone and everything. The thought that she could liquefy her fist and shove it down his throat until he drowns satisfies her, not because she plans to- that wouldn't do anything- but because just knowing she can is pleasing.

"Major. I'm glad you could benefit me and tell me about your experiences with Greed," she strokes his hair trying to get a grip on the reality, and knowing the double entendre of her words, knowing that business may not be her thing but it's Juliet Douglas's, and she carries it out wearing the liltingly smiling I-know-something-you-don't-know mask of Juliet, the mask she hates because it always has to come off.

Something sharp courses into Sloth, some feeling she probably isn't made to have, carnal and fierce, but she doesn't care either way about if she's supposed to feel it.

Kimblee stops moving under her for a moment, "I get the feeling you're hiding a lot. I get the feeling you're not telling me even the smallest bits," Kimblee sneers to himself.

"Watch your mouth," Sloth chastises, "there's a war on." And this is where she lets the battle side come out, the side that can't go uphill but can drown anything in her path, the one who can't save herself but will ensure nothing can save her enemies. She stares down for a second, and undoes the buttons of her shirt except the top one, except for the tattoo. The one she was made with, her ouroborous defines and confines her, and yet Kimblee's hands can use the same marking that he chose at his disposal and with nobody's needed approval. The hands she doesn't want to touch, not out of fear, but out of covetousness.

"There hasn't been a war since Ishval," Kimblee says, fond and disparaging, running his tongue along Sloth's collarbone.

Sloth's face doesn't fall, because she doesn't hope for any goodness and she isn't Lust. She doesn't hit Kimblee because she's not passionate and she's not Wrath. She doesn't grab Kimblee's neck and make it clear, very clear to him what she means and why, because she's not an aggressive fighter and she's not Envy. She doesn't even kill him, because she knows that wouldn't do anything and it wouldn't make her feel better and she's not Gluttony. She just looks down, because she's Juliet Douglas and she's made to be flat and dismal and she is _not_ human and knows deep down all she's ever going to be is _Sloth_.

Sloth thinks, I may have existed for only a fraction of your life but I've felt more war than you can ever understand; you haven't been made for something, have only existed for yourself and your own gains; I've seen it and lived it and there's more you could ever imagine not only in the world but in _ME_ alone- me- I exist as much as you do- don't get so cocky, I may look calm but ever since I was made I was never really, and you don't know anything about what I mean and you never can.

(For that last part, she almost wishes for his mindset-almost.)

Sloth frowns barely noticeably, and she hopes she's being rougher than anything he's ever done as she thrusts down upon him.

Humans have endless possibilities, and she doesn't know where she would begin, but she knows somehow she'd use it well. She hopes if she was human, she wouldn't fall beneath the cracks of society-knows she wouldn't- but still has the worry, the thought that even being a raving freak like this man is better because she'd have the self assurance, the self-made identity that she will never really have.

Kimblee gives into Sloth's gesture, wondering why exactly she was made into the greyhound woman she is, then forgetting.

Behind closed doors, Sloth is locked in what proclaims to be a golden cage, but she knows better and knows the system and knows it's fine just as long as she's let out- she _has_ to be sometime- as long as she could have all the options but choose the right ones. She really has just a little bit of hope-not too much, just enough to get her by but not enough to hurt her- because she's seen humans, and if they can get as far as people like Kimblee can, then so must or will or at least should she. If she can't, she can abandon hope, because living for an illusion is probably worse than not living at all, but it should be truth and not hope. For a second, Sloth smiles as she feels something in her, heated and carnal and uncaring, impersonal business is always the best and safest. She pulls Kimblee up closer to her. For a second, Sloth is in that halfway place, but seconds only last that long, and Sloth is back in her nowhere place. This isn't closeness, no, it shouldn't be gentle or calm or warm. And she doesn't want it to be.

But this, Sloth realizes, is just an outlet, no time for all these useless feelings she's having. Just no place for it, she hopes, tries to forget Sloth and remember Juliet. Tries, because she's really just Sloth and sloth means sinking and fading, and that's what she's destined to do, but for an in-between time she doesn't need to think of that. She tries to find a grip, and draws Kimblee's _human_ blood, scratching her fingers down his back.

Sloth scrapes her nails down Kimblee's back, not managing to escape, and thinks of lost freedom.


End file.
